A Burden Halved
by marieYOTZ
Summary: Emma recognizes Regina's pain over the loss of Daniel. Set post 2x05 "The Doctor"


_Daniel's hand around her throat, strong and deadly, his wild and wounded eyes seeing nothing at all. Until she whispered his name, until she whispered her love. His hand immediately loosened on her neck - he did not want to hurt her; he alone, in all the world, had never wanted to hurt her. There was an instant where he looked at her with love, but the pain came back, relentless and cruel. He wanted her to make it stop – he wanted her to let him die. "No, no, I won't lose you again…" Don't go, I need you, I love you, I can't do it. I have nothing, I have no one. I don't want to be alone anymore. "I love you." Her whole entire heart was in the words, and Daniel's eyes swam with pain – hers, and his own. "Then love again." He couldn't stay, he was in agony. For just a moment, the woman that Regina had become over all these long decades faded into the background, and it was the sweet girl that Daniel had known standing before him. The one he trusted to help him. And because she loved him, she would end his suffering, though it would bring hers back just as fresh and raw as the first time she'd lost him. She loved him far more than she'd ever loved herself. It took all the courage she had inside a beautiful heart that no one ever saw, but she reached out, magic at her fingers, and with the wave of a hand just as gentle as a kiss, Regina let Daniel go._

_**·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**_

Emma got home from the "welcome back" party at Granny's, tired to the bone. Her time in the Fairy Tale world had been one never ending adrenaline rush, and she guessed she'd be paying for that for weeks to come.

She was not so tired, though, that she didn't sense the presence of an intruder close at her shoulder as she moved to put her keys on the table by the door, and even as the keys dropped from her hand, she wheeled around, hand hard against the throat of her uninvited guest, charging the person back and against the door.

It took only a second to realize that the wide, fearful eyes looking back at her belonged to Regina Mills, and Emma's hand loosened its grip instantly, though it did not drop back to her side right away. She could feel the pulse in Regina's neck beating wildly against her thumb.

Regina's fear ebbed as soon as Emma's hand relaxed on her neck. It didn't escape her notice that Emma's response to recognizing her was to relax, rather than to ratchet up. Regina could think of only one other person who'd ever responded to her the same.

After a long moment, Emma stepped back, awkwardly brushing a hand down one of the lapels of Regina's jacket, slightly crumpled by the commotion.

"Christ, Regina, I'm sorry. I've always been a little hair-trigger, but your fucking Fairy Tale world has pushed me to new extremes. Ogres and warrior-princesses and pirates at every turn. I understand you more than ever. I'd have run away to Maine myself, if you hadn't sent me here first, I swear to God." As she spoke, she walked out of the apartment's entranceway, to flop on the couch in the living room, jerking her head towards the other end of it, by way of a well-mannered offer to have a seat. Slowly, Regina walked over and lowered herself down, in a much more organized manner than Emma's boneless sort of sprawl.

"So, it's good to see that your fall from grace hasn't positively impacted your sense for personal privacy." Emma spoke as the ousted Mayor sat herself. "You know, I'm like 75% sure I'm still the Sheriff, and could arrest you for trespassing right now."

Regina turned to look at Emma, and cocked her lips in a sardonic smile. "Drop in the bucket, Ms. Swan. I'm sorry to have let myself in, but I wanted to speak with you, and you weren't home yet when I arrived. As you might imagine, I find it advisable not to mill about in public much, these days…"

Emma shrugged, understanding, point conceded. "Well, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"About… what happened to you in the other world. About what's happening over there." She hesitated. "I know that your parents…", she saw Emma's slight twitch at the word, "… are not necessarily wholly comfortable with the idea of keeping me in the loop –" she pressed on, ignoring Emma's snort "—but I think it would be a mistake on their part to keep me in the dark. If we're going to…"

Emma shook her head, interrupting before Regina could go any further, sitting up slightly. "You don't have to convince me, Regina. Believe me, no matter what everyone's problems are with you right now, after what… Snow… and I have seen and been through, _I _want you on our side, and I definitely want you in the know. I know in my gut that trouble is coming for all of us…" she rubbed at the back of her neck as she spoke, a gesture that suggested anxiety and exhaustion, "…and whether or not people are ready to accept it, we can't afford to keep fighting yesterday's fights."

Emma leaned forward then, planted her elbows on her knees, and turned to look square at Regina, shrugging a little hopelessly, a little apologetically. "I just can't do it right now. I am more fucking tired than I have ever been in my life, and all I want is to sleep one night without having to actually worry that I might wake up in the stomach of a wolf with only a golden goose for company, who's saying that if I can spin straw into glass slippers by the stroke of midnight, he'll point me to a genie who will show me the way back home via the third star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."

"Second." Regina offered, biting back a little smile. Emma stared at her blankly, and Regina just shook her head. "Never mind." Regina was about to collect herself and make her exit when Emma reached out and put a hand on Regina's right arm, just above her elbow. It was awkward; clearly an unpracticed gesture on Emma's part, but the wide-open sincerity in Emma's eyes was striking.

"Regina…" Emma spoke slowly, looking for the right words – safe words – she had gone enough rounds with her quick-to-anger nemesis to have a care in how she spoke to Regina. "Henry and James told me about Daniel… about – about how he came back…" Emma's hand, unpracticed though it might have been in the art of offering support, kindness, acknowledgement, squeezed gently on Regina's arm and accomplished exactly that. Emma leaned forward slightly, gaze still so intense and concerned.

A moment's hesitation. "I killed him…" Regina finally whispered, unable, despite her reluctance, to stop herself from giving a much-needed voice to her distress, to her suffering. She stared at Emma, looking almost confused, as though the words she spoke mystified her. "I wanted him to stay so badly, but… I killed him."

Emma shook her head slowly, in sympathy, in empathy. Strange, that in this whole bizarre universe she'd landed in, which was populated almost entirely by blood-relations of hers, it felt like – it was Regina she most understood; Regina, with her shortcomings and failures and wrong-turns and dogged aloneness, all things that Emma knew very well. Born of this understanding, Emma found the courage and the compassion to move just a little closer on the sofa, so that her right knee bumped Regina's left one; and the grace to say - with absolute sincerity, unmarred by reproach or judgment – "I'm sorry."

The half-embrace, stiff though it was, was offered sincerely, and accepted with a muted gratefulness. Regina had bourn this wound silently and stoically for weeks, and now she found that merely having it acknowledged, its validity respected, made it hurt a little less. She nodded her acknowledgement of Emma's words, unable to speak further.

After a long moment, Emma shifted back to her end of the couch. "Alright… I'm going to bed. I'll come find you at home tomorrow morning sometime. Catch you up."

Regina, slightly relieved to be back on more familiar ground, nodded and stood to leave. "Not too late, Ms. Swan. I do have things I have to get done."

Emma snorted as she, too, stood. "Hey, don't do me any favors or anything. Night, Regina…" She said, turning towards her room.

"Night, Ms. Swan." Regina answered, as she made for the front door. "Welcome home…"


End file.
